I was never meant to be a lawyer. For most of the history of our justice system, people with my socioeconomic background had neither the resources nor the connections needed to become a lawyer. And one that is openly queer, non-binary and transgender? Never.

Yet, here I am. Not just a lawyer, but President of the largest professional association for lawyers in British Columbia.

I didn’t know any lawyers growing up. My parents were separated, and my primary home was with my dad. He was an artist — a fantastic one, but not a financially successful one — so for much of my childhood we got by on welfare and his occasional night shifts driving taxis. My mom, for her part, worked hard to get by as an administrative assistant.

So, although I had a wonderful childhood, I had no cultural, academic or professional reference points for what lay ahead of me when I went to law school. In fact, law school’s greatest learning curves were cultural and social, not academic. Add being queer and trans to that and it’s no wonder it took me several years into my career before I started to feel any level of comfort with my new profession.

But one of the advantages of having no frame of reference for what it means to be a lawyer and nevertheless becoming one is that I didn’t have a rigid, confining view of what a lawyer is. To me a lawyer is simply a person with 1) a specific skillset, 2) a deep commitment to certain principles and 3) yes, authorization to practice from the Law Society.

There’s no class attached to that. No race, no gender identity, no specific ability, no religion, no sexual orientation, no requirement to work 80 hours a week to the detriment of your mental health, family and social wellbeing. Distilled down to its essence, the profession of law is primarily just a group of people following and enacting a set of principles.

What that means — and this is the magic of it — is that you don’t have to conform your identity or your life to fit the profession. You can help recreate the profession in your own image by joining it.

This has not always been the case, and even today it isn’t easy. There are still many people to whom accessing this profession and its services seems out of reach, particularly those with intersecting marginalized identities and experiences. The current backlash from some corners of our society to Reconciliation, equity, diversity and inclusion also threatens to shut down some of the incredibly positive change that I’ve personally witnessed during my legal career.

The number and depth of problems our society faces right now can at times be overwhelming and profoundly discouraging. We need all hands on deck to find lasting solutions, which means empowering and learning from diverse perspectives to the benefit of all of us.

While I genuinely and, as a trans person, quite viscerally fear the violence, cruelty and disinformation that we too often are experiencing, I think that the way to face it is not to shrink back, but to be bolder. One of the critical lessons the queer community offers is that when a bully tries to shove you in a closet, you don’t just cower or punch back — you gather your friends and throw yourself a parade.

Put another way, while I may not have been meant to be a lawyer, I didn’t get to where I am despite my background and identities. I made it here because of them. And I don’t think we can fully provide the steadfast, creative and fearlessly principled legal profession our society desperately needs right now without engaging our shared humanity and the full diversity of our identities and experiences.

It’s a tall ask, but I’ve rarely met a lawyer afraid of a challenge.